


Tears of the Phoenix

by CyclonicJet



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:49:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyclonicJet/pseuds/CyclonicJet
Summary: Nezha has succeeded in destroying the Gray Towers. He has waged his war against the Hesperian faith, against the maker itself, and won. And now he must face one final challenge. The final demon controlling him. The final shadow still lying thick over Nikara. Fang Runin is dead. But her spirit...her spirit still burns.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Tears of the Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> Someone suggested the idea of Nezha starting a war to expel the Grey Company from Nikara, and while an interesting concept, all I really wanted to do was write the conclusion to that story. So I did! Enjoy the pain!

Nezha had timed the detonation wrong. He was blasted backward into the wall, his back spasming with pain at the impact. The explosives had done their job. The tower began to shake, stone warping and twisting in unnatural ways.

Somewhere far away he could hear Rin laughing. Her high-pitched screech of joy matched only by the groaning of the tower. Nezha could feel the Dragon beginning to push against his mind. Demanding his attention. He tried to ignore it. He couldn’t afford to be incapacitated now. He needed to get out of-

A deafening crack splintered the column in front of him, as it was snapped in half as easily as a twig. The section of wall it had been supporting caved in, blocking his escape.

Rin screeched even louder, her laughter shrill and piercing, like some demonic bird. Like a phoenix’s cry…

He rushed over and began trying to tear the rubble away, but it was a hopeless task. He was trapped. He spun around desperately, looking for a way out, as great blocks of stone began smashing into the mosaiced floor around him.

There was nowhere. That gate had been the only entrance to the tower. He hugged the wall and felt it shudder at his touch. A chunk of marble crashed to the ground not ten feet from him.

' _At least it’s destroyed!’_ he thought triumphantly. _‘My people are liberated from the false god!’_

Rin shrieked in delight at the thought. The sound of her mad cackling consuming his mind. He fell to his knees, agonizing pain beginning to blaze through his head. The Dragon was furious at his rejection of it. It pressed in even harder. Rin kept laughing.

An earth-shaking rumble convulsed the ground. The sound of splitting stone following behind it, like the noise a collapsing mountain might have made. Nezha looked up to see the top of the tower had collapsed, monolithic slabs that had once formed the roof falling towards him.

The sound of laughter reached a fevered pitch, and the wrath of the Dragon flooded his mind. Nehza screamed, looking up at the rapidly approaching stones.

 _Please.’_ he begged, his voice barely a whisper in his own mind. Drowned out by Rin’s hysterics and the Dragon’s frothing fury. _‘End it.’_

And the universe, for the first time ever, granted him its mercy, and promptly crushed him to death under a mountain of stone. 

* * *

Nezha awoke to the gentle lapping of water, washing over his ruined flesh. It was such a tranquil sound. One that reminded him of home. Of long summer nights spent walking the beaches of Arlong. Of a time before things had stopped making sense. Before the cave. Before the Dragon.

He opened his eyes to find the stars staring down at him. He blinked groggily back at them. He knew that sky. He had grown up with it. That was the Nikaran sky.

But. That wasn’t right, was it? He had been in Hesperia. Hadn’t he? He had been…

A soft cackle wafted on the breeze. Nezha turned his head, and found a monster walking towards him. Her skin like burnt ash, wings of scarlet flame fluttering from her back, and a blood-curdling smile across her lips.

“Well done Nezha.” Rin whispered, poppy red eyes staring at him in glee. “You did it.”

Somewhere far away, the sound of crumbling masonry sang to him. Nezha gritted his teeth, and pushed himself to his feet. He would not meet her on his back. That’s where she wanted him. He wouldn’t grant her that pleasure.

The beach was deserted. It belonged to just the two of them. Nezha and Rin. Alone.

“I told you Nezha.” she smirked. “I told you it would come to this.”

The flames began to wreath themselves around her, the sand beneath her feet crystalizing into vitrified glass with each step she took.

“You’re nothing.” he hissed. “You don’t scare me. You’re a phantom! The ghost of a dead girl! You’re not real! You are not Rin!”

The creature laughed. “Of course I’m real Nezha.” The heat began to tickle at his face. “I’m every bit as real as _you_ are. Because we’re the same Nezha. We always were.”

“We are _nothing_ alike!” he snapped. He shot out an arm, calling to the water to serve him. It did not answer. The Dragon remained silent. And the heat began to burn.

“Of course we are.” she cooed. She was no more than a dozen paces away now. Nezha’s instincts told him to run. He told them to shove it. He would not back down from her.

“We are the same, because I have _made_ us the same.” she whispered. “You wanted peace. I gave you war. You wanted to make allies. I gave you enemies. You wanted to rule over Nikara. I gave you a land of ashes.”

“I did rule wisely!” he all but screamed. The monster stopped six paces short. The blazing inferno pouring off it, searing at his flesh.

“I brought them food! I gave them hope! I fixed everything you destroyed!”

“Yes. You did.” She grinned. “And then you started dreaming. Then you allowed me back in.”

“Shut up!”

“Who chose to start that war Nezha? Who picked that fight with Hesperia? Was it you? Or was it me?”

“I-“ He roared at her. “You do not control me! I am my own person!”

A shrill shriek of delight filled the air, a blazing effigy soaring over Rin. A great burning bird, cackling towards the heavens.

She stepped towards him. “Oh Nezha.” she whispered, cupping his cheek in her hand, the flames melting his face. “Poor foolish Nezha.” She drew him in close, her face filling his vision. “You never were.”

She pressed her lips against his, locking him into her embrace. Fiery tendrils poured down his throat. He wanted to scream, but the air was gone, consumed. Vaporized. 

He tried to pull back, but her grip was iron...and he found he didn’t want to. There was a part of him, an aspect he had thought long dead, that wanted nothing more to surrender into it. To embrace her. To melt into that kiss of fiery death.

Soon it didn’t matter what he wanted. Infact everything stopped mattering. His thoughts. Her words. Even the fire itself. All there was what the kiss, and then nothingness.

* * *

“Nezha.” Rin whispered, drawing him awake. “You can let go now.”

He kept his eyes shut. He was dead. She had killed him. If he just kept his eyes closed she would leave him alone. She would-

A hand squeezed around his own. “It’s okay.” she said. “You don’t need to keep holding on.”

He seethed a moment, and then pressed open his eyes. They were on Speerly. It’s golden, skull-strewn beaches all around them. Nezha looked everywhere but Rin. He knew what he would find. He had lived it over and over again. He didn’t want to see it anymore.

A stump pressed against his face, tilting his head back to her. She smiled at him, even as she clutched at his hand, at the knife he had plunged into her chest.

“Don’t…” he pleaded. “Don’t make me relive this.”

“If you don’t, she’ll always be with you Nezha. That monster will forever haunt you. I don’t want that. I want you to be free of her.”

He tried to let the knife go, but his grip wouldn’t relax. He couldn’t let it go.

“But-” he said desperately. “But you are her! You’re the phantom! The nightmare that follows me everywhere I go!”

“I wish I was.” Rin said sorrowfully, her eyes full of pity. “Then maybe it could have been different.”

“But- but- if- if you’re not her. Who are you!?”

“Me?” she smiled warmly. “I’m just a girl from Tikany. A girl who could never find her way back home.” She squeezed his hand again. “I’m Fang Runin.”

“Fang Runin is dead!” Nezha hissed frustrated.

“Fang Runin is dead.” she agreed. “Just like Chen Kitay is dead. Just like Sring Venka is dead.” She met his eye. “Just like Yin Nezha is dead.”

He blinked, fighting back agitated tears. “I’m not dead.” he growled. “I’m not allowed to die.”

“But you want to be.” Rin answered. “You want to be so badly. Because that’s how the pain stops. That’s how you can rest.” She caressed his cheek with her stump. “That’s how we can all be together again.”

Nezha could resist the anguish no longer. Hot stinging tears rolling down his face.

“But...I can’t...”

Rin wrapped her arm around the back of his head, pressing his forehead to hers. “I know…” she whispered. “Fang Runin died on this beach, Nezha. Don’t allow Yin Nezha to have died with her.”

She began tugging on the knife, sliding it out of her chest. “Let her go, Nezha. Let her rest.”

Nezha halted the knife, forcing Rin to stop with him. He couldn’t release the knife. He didn’t want to. He couldn’t let her-

“It’s okay Nezha.” she breathed, pressing their heads together even tighter. “You can let me go now. Be free of her…”

Nezha hesitated. He didn’t have the courage. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to be alone aga-

“Please.” Her voice was barely even audible. “Just let her go.”

Nezha squeezed his eyes shut, and did the hardest thing he had ever done. He chose to live in peace. He chose to live alone. A single, fateful, halting breath drew into his lungs, and then, with tears soaking his cheeks, Nezha pulled the dagger free. 

He dropped it into the sand, and Rin sighed in blissful relief. “Thank you.” she whispered. “Now I can tell Kitay and Venka the truth.”

“What truth?” he asked, keeping his eyes squeezed closed, trying desperately to cling to the rapidly evaporating scene.

“That you didn’t die as well that day...” She pressed her hand to his heart. “That Yin Nezha, still lives.”

Rin’s presence faded. The pressure of her body evaporating until only empty space remained. And then she was gone. And Nezha, was at long last, free of her. Free of all of them. Left alone to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. The last survivor of Sinegard. The last of his friend’s still alive.

 _'The last one,’_ he thought, _‘still unable to find his way back home.’_


End file.
